


I Keep Thinking Back To

by radiodurans



Category: BBC Radio 1 RPF, Harry Styles (Musician)
Genre: Alternate Universe: Harry is a University Music Major, Alternate Universe: Nick is a Podcaster, Coming of Age, F/F, Gender Dysphoria, Genderswap, Harry is 20, In which I watched Call Me By Your Name twice and said, Lesbianism, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Harry Styles, Other, The General Aesthetics of Italy, kathy voice from the last five years “i can do better than that”, trans sapphic Harry Styles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:41:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24062296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radiodurans/pseuds/radiodurans
Summary: Nic holds out her hand for a shake. It’s small with fingernails cut to the quick. Harry, whose manicured nails strike a sharp contrast, feels immediate kinship in the mirror of their met hands. She clocks him as queer a second after he does the same, turning his wrist outwards to look at his pink and yellow nails.Or, a sort-of Call Me By Your Name AU feat. lesbians, Italian villas, gender confusion, and peaches.
Relationships: Harry Styles/Nick Grimshaw, secondary Harry Styles/Kendall Jenner
Comments: 24
Kudos: 29





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea how long this story will be because it just sort of KEEPS HAPPENING so stay tuned on that one. Please do not flame me for this being related to CMBYN - everyone is over the age of consent and the dynamic is like 2014-era Gryles. I really liked the aesthetics of the film and wanted to transform them into something new. It is a. .transformative work of fiction, as it were.
> 
> Please do not send Mx. Harry Styles this fic. Any resemblance to persons living or dead are coincidental yadda yadda etc. I make no claims about Harry Styles' actual sexuality or gender within this story. Think of it as a roman a clef with the real names still tacked on.
> 
> Title of this is very obviously from Canyon Moon.
> 
> Thank you to yellowflares, sulkingroom, and a donor who would like to remain anonymous for pledging at the $5 and up tier on my Patreon.

Harry is in his rattiest pair of pyjamas the day Nic shows up at their home. It’s been routine the past five summers for someone on holiday to rent out the spare room in their summer home, so he makes nothing of it when he’s told it’s happening again. Still, he would’ve liked to have been told the guest was a woman _before_ she saw him wolfing down Honey-Nut Cheerios in a Rolling Stones shirt held together with safety pins and a dream. Instead, Harry’s reading the cereal box to preserve roaming data on his phone when she stumbles in, three suitcases in hand. Her face is sweaty and her short hair is stuck up on one side of her head in a way that suggests it is supposed to be stuck up on the other side.

“Hullo!” she says cheerily, as though she does not know that she looks like she escaped a crisis situation. “You must be Harry! I’m Nicole – Nic, for short.”

Nic holds out her hand for a shake. It’s small with fingernails cut to the quick. Harry, whose manicured nails strike a sharp contrast, feels immediate kinship in the mirror of their met hands. She clocks him as queer a second after he does the same, turning his wrist outwards to look at his pink and yellow nails.

“Pretty nails –”

“Harry,” he finishes for her.

“Harry! Lovely prince Harry! Or –” she pauses with a small frown. “ _Princess_ Harry?”

“Ah –” answers Harry, because it’s eight in the morning and he wouldn’t even have an answer at noon. Luckily, Nic is all too happy to barrel through his obvious confusion. She pulls her hand away and picks up one of her lighter suitcases.

“Would you mind showing me around the castle, princess Harry? I hear you’ve got a spare room where commoners such as myself can rest their weary heads.”

Harry nods and grabs one of her bigger bags. The whole house, with its wide windows to let in the sun, suddenly seems as though it’s lit with fluorescent light. He considers touring her with his back to the house as though he is a uni guide for incoming students, but thinks better of it when he realizes how heavy her bag is. Instead, he quietly thrills at the way their arms brush and at the sound of her footsteps in time with his own.

God, he is _so_ fucked.

-

He learns ‘everything he needs to know’ (her words, not his) about Nic as she makes a home in the spare bedroom. Nic’s 29 to his 20; she’s a ‘pop-culture podcaster’ and identifies as a dyke – or a _token_ dyke, depending upon the audience. Manchester is her origin, London is her home, and Italy is her holiday. According to Nic, she’s been partying too hard and needs to get a bit of a tan before returning to ‘the glorious island of fog, smog, and rain.’

When she’s all unpacked, she turns around, sits on the bed, and props her chin on her hands.

“Enough about me. Tell me about yourself, princess Harry.”

Harry takes a seat on an uncomfortable velvet chair that obviously wasn’t designed for sitting. He folds his hands in his lap, willing himself to be half as clever and charming as Nic has been for her entire introduction.

“I study musical performance and composition at Royal Northern College. Grew up in Manchester and stayed there. Live in a flat not too far from my family but far enough for privacy. That’s er–” he furrows his brow in thought, trying to find anything else safe enough to share with a stranger. Finding nothing either safe or clever, he says, “That’s about it.”

Nic nods, seeming fascinated by the overarching details of his boring life. He can’t help but wonder if she’s actually interested or if feigning interest in the lives of strangers has become second-nature to her as a podcast host.

“What kind of music do you compose? Like, pop music? Rock music?”

Harry shakes his head; his answer is often disappointing to other people.

“Classical, mostly. I’m a pianist but I’ve been writing some orchestral stuff lately as well.”

He’s surprised when Nic’s face lights up with what seems like genuine excitement.

“ _Wicked_. I love a good classical piece. Could I have a listen, sometime?” she says.

Harry flushes, bowled over by the enthusiasm.

“Erm, sure. Anytime. Not, like, now but – soon.”

Nic flops on her back and puts one hand on her heart.

“ _I think I’m gonna like it here_ ,” she sings. Then, she lifts up her head and winks at Harry. “Annie, yeah?”

Harry grins and winks back.

“Yeah.”

-

Nic works early mornings on tight schedules, Harry learns, when she’s mid-chat with another host at five AM. Her full-bellied laugh awakes him from a very peaceful slumber. Harry tries and fails to not be a little annoyed that he’s up so early for no reason.

 _It’s not like she’s reporting on **real** news_, he thinks disdainfully before becoming awash in guilt over having such an insulting thought. After all, he hates when people imply his own work is frivolous. He feels a bit better about his initial negativity when he hears Nic say, sarcastically, “God, our work really is _so_ important, isn’t it? What would the world do without our commentary on Jon Hamm’s cock?”

Once he’s adjusted to being fully awake, his negative feelings recede entirely. Nic is an engaging host, as funny on-mic as she is in real life. He doesn’t usually care about entertainment news but he finds himself hanging on to Nic’s every word. Her cadence is comforting; she would pair great with a commute. Harry imagines himself at uni listening to her as he’s on his way to class. Perhaps he will in the fall.

He really has to piss (and take care of some _other things_ as well) but he’s so worried about disturbing her that he waits near an hour until she signs off for the morning. Unfortunately, they have the exact same idea at the exact same time, so each of them opens the sliding door of the bathroom only to find –

Well, a continuation of Harry’s utter torture at being in close proximity to the prettiest girl he’s ever seen. Nic obviously hasn’t showered yet – benefit of working from home, Harry supposes – and she’s only wearing a long, thin shirt that clearly has no bra underneath. Harry tries to look away from her _everything_ and wills her to not notice his humiliatingly present erection. It’s been less than a day; the last thing he needs is for her to already find him disgusting.

“Oh – sorry,” says Nic. “You can go first.”

Harry angles his hips away from the entrance of the door and crosses his legs.

“No, please. You’re the guest.”

Nic grips the sides of the door with both hands and leans in playfully.

“Right, but it’s your house. Your castle, as it were, princess Harry.”

He flushes at the nickname. It’s too early in the morning and she’s too bloody gorgeous to sound so fond of Harry, a boy she barely knows. For the first time, he wonders if she’s mocking him with the name. She seems genuine, but –

Nic’s eyes travel the line of Harry’s body, top-down, until his bottom half cuts off at the door. Her eyes light up in recognition as to why he might be hiding half of his body. Now, it’s Nic’s turn to blush.

“On second thought, I think I’ll have a run before I shower,” she says. Nic closes the sliding door and scurries away.

Harry’s shower is cold, cold, cold, cold. He tries to think of anything but Nic and fails miserably.

-

The house is too busy that day to discuss the _bathroom incident_ any further. Everyone in the community takes turns hosting a “Welcome Back” party, and this is the first time their family has been on duty. Harry’s sweaty by the time the afternoon rolls around, having spent the morning neck-deep in slow-cooked sausages. He doesn’t always like helping in the kitchen, but Nic peels a mean vegetable, and the chance to watch her nimble fingers work was too good to pass up. Harry almost burns himself twice while watching her work a tough potato over the rubbish bin. He’s going to lose valuable piano-playing fingers over Nic and her no-good-very-bad potatoes.

Nic comments on his hair twice before the party begins. First – a firm bounce of her finger against his bun. Second –

“I like your hair tied up like that,” she says while tackling a knotted carrot. Harry, who is thinly slicing cucumber, pauses so he doesn’t chop off the tip of his index finger in trembling excitement.

“Thanks. Keeps it out of my face, you know,” he says, playing casual.

Nic shreds at her carrot with some violence until _pop_ – the inedible knot thumps into the trash. She blows a stray hair out of her face, frowning.

“Wish my haircut was a little more functional. Gets in the way, you know what I mean?”

Harry wipes his hands on his apron and snaps a bobble on his wrist.

“D’you want me to tie it up for you? I have a spare,” he says. Nic looks at her orange hands and nods.

“Sure. I don’t need bits of carrot sticking out of my hair tonight while I’m trying to mistakenly seduce a straight girl.”

Holding his fingers as steady as he can, Harry gathers up the hair on top of Nic’s head into a top-knot reminiscent of Cindy Lou-Who. Nic looks upward when he’s done, as though she can inspect her own hair that way.

“Does this look as silly as it feels?”

Harry shrugs, suddenly self-conscious over allowing himself the opportunity to do something so intimate as to touch her hair. She probably thinks he isn’t attracted to girls – a common misconception – which is why they’re able to converse with such ease and comfort. He’s been here before – as soon as a lesbian learns he is into girls too, she runs far, far away.

“It’s functional. I used to do it on runs before I grew out my mane,” says Harry.

Nic cracks a smile at that thought.

“Oh, Jesus. I bet all the boys loved that,” she says.

“They did,” he replies by omission. Straight women loved it too, though never in a way that felt _right_. He’s been dating a lot of men lately because of this – hyper-masculine men with a long track record of female partners before falling into his lap. They tell him he’s pretty and they pull his hair and he thinks _oh, okay_ as he sucks them off.

He thinks about what that might look like with a girl late at night. The thrill of a girl stroking his long hair and saying _oh, okay_ as their legs entwine. It’s a thought too shameful, too frightening to put in his spank bank of crude images to wank off to. Nic can never, _ever_ know that his brain is populated with these ridiculous heterosexual fantasies. It won’t make for a very pleasant summer if she knows that his dreams are haunted by titties.

Nic picks up another carrot and chops it in half. It’s too big for her to peel without hurting herself. Harry dumps another baggie of bread for sandwiches on the counter and begins stacking them neatly. He’s still too distracted by Nic’s earlier compliment, and by her warm skin against his palm, to be trusted with cutting cucumber right away. 

Despite his prowess at the piano, Harry has never been one for detail work in the kitchen. The hands that allow him to stretch octaves are lousy for detail work. He feels as enthralled by the beauty of Nic’s hands as he is envious of their size. Unfortunately, Nic catches him watching when she turns to peel the vegetable.

“Seeking tips?” she says cheekily.

Harry turns to face his bread a little too hurriedly to pretend he wasn’t thirsting over her hands.

“No. I know I’m hopeless at, erm, peeling. Just impressed, is all,” he says.

“Hm,” is Nic’s only response as she turns back towards the rubbish bin and peels and peels and peels.

-

It’s twilight by the time the party starts. Fairy lights hang from every foldout table and from the trees, too. Nic gave directive earlier that evening as Harry hung them – a good eye for style on her. Harry admires their handiwork as he mills around the party, small plate of food and a plastic cup of wine in hand. Everyone he already knows is here, so he takes his time checking in with the guests. It speaks to the lure of the party – or maybe the amicable nature of Harry himself – that some of his previous summer loves are here. He waves with four fingers to Taylor when she passes by with a small group of pretty friends; she chokes back a laugh when this makes him almost spill wine all over his shirt.

Harry is a charming devil, even by accident.

He sits down at a picnic table to watch the partygoers dance. Everyone is tipsy in an early-evening sort of way. His friend Niall – a former hookup-cum-friend, to be more specific – is clumsily swing dancing with a girl Harry doesn’t know. He makes up for his lack of talent with confidence, delighting onlookers with dips that almost leave the girl on the ground. Despite her precarious situation, the girl is laughing too. Niall’s hands are soft, he knows, and he always smells wonderful – musky deodorant and trimmed grass. She’ll go home with him tonight.

Harry pops a fat grape in his mouth and turns his gaze towards Nic. She’s half-dancing with a glass of rose. For a little while, it seemed as though Nic has chosen to bark up the wrong tree with a glossy straight girl this evening. However, as the night has gone on, the “straight” of it all has melted away. Nic has been fussing with Straight Girl’s collar and brushing her hand and whispering little jokes in her ear for hours and Straight Girl, around hour two, started eating it up. Harry’s not jealous – he’s _not_ – because that would presuppose that Nic would be interested in him to begin with. She’s a lesbian, ergo, he would have _no right_ to harbor any jealousy towards her for toying with Straight Girl’s naturally blonde hair and biting her lip so hungrily whenever Straight Girl speaks.

It follows that Harry’s proposal to a very-nearby, very-sloshed Kendall – _care for a dance?_ – has absolutely _nothing_ to do with the way Nic’s Straight Girl turns to Nic and starts half-dancing back. Nic drains her wine and gently sets down the cup in the grass. On his way over, Harry crunches the cup under his feet.

Kendall is beautiful and a great dancer so it’s not hard to get lost in her for a little while. She’s wearing a red dress that’s a little too sexy for the occasion and it’s clear that she came here to hook up with somebody, _anybody._ Harry feels a strange urge to wink at Nic – _see, I can get straight girls too_ – but stops himself when he remembers what a ludicrous flex that would be. Mere hours earlier he’d been concerned that she’d find out he was into women at all. Now that the cat’s out of the bag, the least he can do is not be weird about it.

Soon, the party is lit as much by fireflies as by fairy lights. Some of the children at the party have caught them in jars and are yawning as they poke at the poor creatures’ prisons. Kendall has leaned deeper into Harry, grinding her hips against his own. His mother, who has always liked Kendall, gives him a little _ok_ sign from across the yard. _I’ll understand if you come home late_. Harry’s had a few more glasses of wine in the interim between not-jealousy and borderline-grinding, so it’s starting to seem like an inevitability that he and Kendall will steal away soon.

Nic and the Straight Girl are leaning up against a tree, pinkies entwined. Harry feels the kiss before he sees it, a jolt in his gut as their lips brush and then meet. He stops swaying along with Kendall when Nic leans in for a kiss again and again and again. Nic pushes Straight Girl up against the tree and subtly grinds her knee between Straight Girl’s legs. A hot wave of shame floods Harry’s body. He’s not supposed to want –

“Let’s go find somewhere a bit more private,” says Harry. He takes Kendall by the hand and leads her far, far away from Nic and the Straight Girl and all of his shame.

-

They settle into a redecorated shed buried in the trees behind Kendall’s parents’ house. Most of it is taken up by an enormous hot tub though it also has a small table and chairs in case stripping down to one’s pants becomes too boring. He and Kendall have made love here many times before – on the thin edge of the hot tub, in the water itself, half-in and half-out, and, once, even on the unassuming patio furniture.

Kendall’s down to her panties before Harry even has the chance to kiss her. She sits on the side of the hot tub and crooks her finger seductively. Her tan legs are crossed and her dark hair is spilling over her shoulders and Harry thinks _I want_ so he closes the distance between them. Kendall fists the front of his t-shirt and laughs into his mouth.

“You’ve gotten so fucking _thick_ ,” she moans, grabbing his chest.

“Spending a lot of hours at the gym,” says Harry. The tone she’s using is a little. . .uncomfortable, but he does like compliments, so he’ll take it. He pulls away a little so that he can remove his top and shorts. Before Kendall can touch him again, Harry drops to his knees.

He takes his time kissing up Kendall’s thigh. His fingers dance on her skin, making her shiver and pant. By the time he reaches her inner thigh, her panties are soaked. Harry pulls them away with one finger and slides it inside Kendall. A ripple of full-bodied pleasure rushes through him. He tongues at her clit, marveling at all of Kendall’s glorious moans and sighs. She’s always been wonderfully _direct_ with him during oral sex, and today is no exception. Kendall digs her fingers into his bun and wrests his head this way and that in between her legs. Each yank of her hand brings him closer and closer to coming without ever being touched.

Eating Kendall out is so fucking delightful that he almost shuts out the countdown-to-penetrative-sex clock ticking obtrusively in his ear. It’s not that he _hates_ penetrative sex, it’s just, well –

Okay, so maybe he hates penetrative sex. Admittedly this is one of the reasons he hasn’t been with that many girls lately. If he doesn’t want to do it, they assume he’s gay or that he doesn’t like them very much. In contrast, guys _love_ that he’s a strict bottom. Sure, he gets some ‘no femmes’ assholes but even some of those guys are swayed once they see that Harry is – okay, the word “built” gets under his skin too, but it’s a lot better than topping. As much as girls love when he eats them out, they’re always going to think of it as foreplay instead of the real deal – and God help him if he ever suggests _pegging_. The last girl he suggested that to stopped answering his calls the next day.

Kendall, he thinks, would never stop answering his calls, but she would definitely stop letting her eat him out if he ever suggested anything like that. Since eating Kendall out has been one of the great pleasures of the last three summers, he allows the tradeoff of –

“C’mere. I want you to cum inside me,” Kendall moans. Harry pulls away from her clit and wipes his face on his palm. His stomach sinks as he rises to his feet, looks down, and has to reckon with – _it._ Harry strokes _it_ with a clenched fist (wrong) so that _it_ gets a little harder (ugh) and Kendall moans appreciatively. He can’t tell if she’s actually turned on or if she’s seen too much porn and thinks that’s what he likes.

Kendall gets on her back on the edge of the hot tub, spreads her legs wide, and bends her knees. Harry gets between her thighs, stroking himself again.

“No condoms?” he says, realizing he’d forgotten them. Maybe they can bail out if they don’t have any, just kiss and rub on each other until they both cum from that alone. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

“IUD,” says Kendall. She bites her lip suggestively. Harry tries to look excited about not having to use protection to do the thing he doesn’t want to do. He pushes inside her and she gasps. Kendall wraps her legs around Harry, pulling him closer until he bottoms out inside her. Then, he starts thrusting shallowly.

Feeling a little detached from any and all of it, Harry allows his mind to wander. He combs the events of the afternoon and the party in his mind, latching on to the asexual bits – food and wine and fairy lights. The way the grass smelled and the wood picnic tables that bumped against his ankles.

Unfortunately, his mind wanders to Nic. Nic, and her Straight Girl, and all of the things they’re probably doing together right now. Her fingers are surely crooked deep inside Straight Girl at this very moment willing her to cum through that alone. Maybe her jaw is as tired as Harry’s is from kissing and eating out Straight Girl all night.

(Kendall starts touching herself. A flush runs up her neck as Harry keeps going. _God_ , he wants to make this nice for her – it’s not fair to her that his brain is always somewhere else.)

Unbidden, another image flickers into his mind. _He_ is Straight Girl, flicking his clit as enthusiastically as Kendall is right now. Nic, deep inside him, is willing him to cum. _Cum, Harry._

Miraculously, Kendall cums a second before he does. He’s usually bad at coming on time – it’s either early, while he’s eating a girl out, or it’s late, when he has to reveal that he often can’t get off from finishing inside a girl. Harry should probably feel ashamed that he was thinking of someone else at the time, but Kendall has never really cared about the _what are we_ of their relationship. She gets off and he gets off and then they go their separate ways.

Harry pulls out of Kendall gently. She laughs and wipes a flake of mascara out of her eye.

“Thanks for that, Harry,” she says.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to my moste noble and sexiest of readers for your comments and subscriptions.

Harry knows he’s woken up late before he even checks his clock because Nic isn’t either recording or in the toilet getting ready for the day. Still, he’s a little shocked to see that it’s eleven o’clock – he’s never been one to sleep this late unless a massive hangover tags along with it. As if on cue, his head throbs. _Fuck_ – how much did he drink last night?

He gets ready in a rush so that he doesn’t lose more of the day. When he gets downstairs, Nic is sprawled on the couch reading a massive book. She looks well-rested, refreshed, and content.

Harry hates her.

“Oh, hullo!” she says cheerily. Nic flops the book onto her lap – Infinite Jest – and smiles wide at him. “Stay out a bit late?”

Harry looks at her grumpily and stomps away to the kitchen, which he knows seems childish, but he doesn’t care. The entire world is too bright and his skin is going to fall off, probably, and all he wants is to eat something greasy and not think about where Nic’s fingers have been. Thankfully, he finds a paper plate with some bacon, sausage, eggs, and a smiley face on it in the fridge.

“There’s food for you in the fridge. Your mum said you might want it,” Nic calls from the other room. Harry throws some white bread in the toaster oven, times the microwave for one minute, and throws the plate inside.

“Thanks,” says Harry, because he can’t stand to be around himself if he’s impolite to someone who’s just trying to be helpful. He grabs his toast, a fork, and his food and leans in the doorway to look at Nic again. Her hair is wet; perhaps she got up late too. Nic tilts her head back to watch Harry curiously as he eats.

“I have a confession. Your mum allowed me to eat some of the eggs that were supposed to be yours. Said I looked like I got hit by a truck,” she says. Nic wrinkles her nose – an apology. Harry doesn’t want to feel fond about it, but he does anyway. He shoves the rest of his piece of toast in his mouth to avoid saying anything that lets on how cute she thinks she’s being.

“She’s a very generous woman. Does that for all guests,” he says tersely upon swallowing. Nic hums in agreement and returns to her book. Food really isn’t _allowed_ in the living room, but he can’t bear to eat knowing Nic is _right there._ So, he sits down on the piano bench adjacent to the couch and commits the sin of putting his plate on top of the piano’s keys. Nic flips a page of the book aggressively.

“Bit pretentious, that,” says Harry, taking a greasy bite of sausage. Nic exhales a resentful sigh into the book’s thick crease.

“God, I know. But men keep telling me to read it and I figured I had time,” she flops the book back down on her lap, crumpling some of the pages against her leg. “You ever have a man tell you to read a book?”

Harry stabs at his eggs with his fork. He nods.

“Had a man tell me to read _that_ book,” he says. “Read it on that couch, just as you are now.”

“What did you think?” Nic asks.

Harry takes a few bites of egg, mulling over a careful answer. There’s always a few layers to what he thinks about a book – the ‘share with strangers’ layer, the ‘share with close friends’ layer, and the part he keeps for himself. He likes keeping unimportant secrets, to be partly unknown. It’s been a while since he read this book, so it takes him a minute to recall what, exactly, his first layer was.

“He has a way with words, but too many of them are about tennis,” Harry says.

Nic nods, flipping idly through some of the pages. One of the three bookmarks needed to read Infinite Jest spills onto her lap; she hurriedly catches the page and shoves it back in.

“Beginning to think it’s an awful lot of work for little reward,” she says. Harry finishes off a piece of bacon and brushes his hand on his trousers.

“Bragging rights,” he says. Nic flops this book closed, leans back on the couch, and tilts her head up on him. She’s got a proud smile that suggests she’s going to give him information that he does _not_ want to hear.

“Got other stuff to brag about already,” says Nic.

“Oh?” says Harry, making a god tier attempt to not sound like his heart is breaking in half. He must succeed, because Nic presses on.

“Shagged a straight girl last night. Told me she’d _never done this before_ and everything. These hands? Magic.”

She waves at Harry as though he hasn’t already spent way too many hours thinking about Nic’s hands. He finishes off his last sausage link, chewing over what to say.

“Two for two, then,” he says. Harry scolds himself internally as soon as it leaves his mouth. _That was supposed to be what the chewing was for, you idiot._

“Oh! Pull a nice lad?” says Nic. Harry’s heart sinks; he’d sort of been hoping that she’d just inferred from his dancing that he liked women too and then they wouldn’t have to have a. . .conversation about it.

“A girl, actually. My mate, er, Kendall,” he says, quietly. His face is almost hot enough to burn his fingerprints clean off.

Nic flops onto her stomach and rests her chin on the arm of the couch. She looks up at him apologetically.

“Sorry. I shouldn’t have assumed. Bisexual?” she says.

Harry resists the urge to sigh until all of the air is emptied from his lungs. It’s a question that he gets all the time and always wishes he had a distinct yes-or-no answer to. Certainly in _action_ he’s bisexual e.g. he sleeps with both men and women But in _spirit –_ well, ‘attracted to the same and opposite gender’ assumes he has a firm grasp on what, exactly, the opposite gender to his own might be.

“I don’t worry about labels too much,” Harry lies. “More about the person and about having fun. If that’s a guy or a girl – we just take it where it leads, you know.”

He finishes his last bite of toast and sets the plate aside. Nic toys with one of his curls and yoinks it.

“Very progressive, Harriet,” she says.

If Harry could buy every single magic crystal on earth it still wouldn’t suffice to astral project him far enough away from this conversation. He shrugs, not meeting her eyes. Nic twirls her finger around the curl she just tugged and _god_ between his admission and his blushing he might as well evaporate right here rather than cope with the subsequent cold shoulder he’s about to receive.

Instead, she surprises him.

“I like all queer people, you know,” she says matter-of-factly. “Doesn’t bother me that you’re the, er, _in-between_ type. So long as you’re nice, we’ll get on.”

Harry’s heart starts fluttering so fast he near-chokes on it. He gives her a mischievous grin.

“Terrible news, then. I am actually the worst.”

-

Summering in Italy has a tendency to make the days melt into one another like syrup on hot pavement. However, this is the first year Harry has had one exception to that rule. Nic’s podcast goes dark on Saturdays and Sundays, producing a neat delineation between weekend and weekday. Supposedly she announces the date during recording every morning, but Harry is never awake early enough to hear it. His weeks are demarcated merely as Nic, Nic, Nic, Nic, Nic, Quiet, Quiet.

They haven’t had any embarrassing bathroom interactions since that first day. Harry’s not sure if it’s creepy that he’s figured out Nic’s recording schedule so he can slip in and out of the bathroom without getting in her way, but she seems to appreciate the way their morning schedules _just so happen_ to fit neatly together. Strange, that.

Around ten AM, they settle into their respective places in the living room – Harry, with his piano, and Nick, with her book. He’s impressed by her perseverance, and has even written a little song about it to play alongside her morning reading.

(As it is an instrumental piece, the song has no formal lyrics. However, if Harry were to give “official” lyrics to the general mood of the piece, they might say something like – _Nic, Nic, Nic, I wish I could look at your pink tongue sticking out of your mouth while you read for the rest of my life, Nic, whenever I see it all I want to do is play music about it, Nic, Nic, I’m so crazy about how you’re reading this book to tell someone to stop telling you to read it, Nic, I love how much you hate it, please talk to me about it forever –_

Something along those lines, anyway.)

Most days of the week, his mum sends him on errands after lunch. Nic and Harry trail after each other on bike into the town square to drop off mail or pick up milk. They’ll linger in town, together or separately, until dinnertime when they rejoin and go home. After, a bonfire with the whole family or outings with friends. Sometimes, Nic still texts the Straight Girl – _Alice, her name is_ – or other women she’s happened to meet during her time here. On those nights, Harry meets up with old flames and pays very bad attention to them the entire time. He’s not sure why the universe has cursed him to this existence of endless pining for the most unattainable woman in all of Northern Italy but some hungover mornings he feels like it’s ruining his life. Then, he sees Nic with her wet hair and her book all over again and thinks – never mind.

So, he plays.

-

The bonfire set up to celebrate their first month of summer in Italy is positively _decadent_. It burns a clean orange in the fire pit, shooting smoke directly into the sky due to lack of wind. Nic and Harry are sharing a log on one side of the yard with his mum, stepdad, and sister on the other side. At the right angle, it seems as though he and Nic might be entirely alone. Whenever their thighs brush, he gets a little thrill at that _zing_ of heat.

As the night goes on, Nic leans closer and closer. There – arm to arm and there – head to shoulder and _there –_ ankle to ankle. Her hand is _centimetres_ away from his own, practically _begging_ to be held. He becomes transfixed by the gap between their little fingers, narrowing, narrowing. When Nic catches him watching, she taps her pinkie finger to his own.

“Planning my next manicure for me?” she jokes. Her finger doesn’t move away. Rather, it casually splays over his own, masculine and delicate all at once.

Harry smiles, nods, and then dissociates for at _least_ three minutes.

He’s aroused from his stupor by his sister saying his name several times – _Harry! Harry! Harry!_ Leaning to look around in the general direction of his family, he sees all three of them laughing about – well, _God_ knows what. Praying it’s nothing embarrassing, he says, “Yeah, Gemma?”

Gemma stumbles half drunk to the midpoint between their parents and Harry’s private rendezvous. Her hair is wild; it appears their mother has twisted floral weeds into it.

“We were just talking about how you used to wear wellies when you played dress-up like a princess. Do you remember? When you were small?”

The part of himself that loves Gemma more than anything shrivels instantaneously into a black husk.

“Yes,” he says in a small voice. “ _Why?_ ”

Gemma shrugs as though she has not revealed hugely embarrassing information in front of a near-stranger.

“It was cute. Just wanted you to remember how much we love you,” she says.

The light that has gone out inside of Harry has now lit up Nic’s face. She goes for a full squeeze of Harry’s hand, which throws him into such an emotional rollercoaster that he’s surprised he doesn’t just pass out.

“That is _adorable_ ,” she says. “Did he play, like, all the little princess games in those boots? Marrying princes and the like?”

Gemma crosses over to Harry and envelops him in her arms from behind. She smells cloyingly sweet, like an overabundance of fruit and wine. Her tangled hair falls into his face and tickles his nose. One of the small flowers falls into Harry’s lap.

“Yes to the boots, no to the princes. Our princess Harry married every other _princess_ in the neighborhood. Right harem he had before one of the neighborhood mums got in a strop about boys in dresses marrying girls.”

She kisses Harry on the forehead. Her lipgloss is sticky and leaves behind a residue that he can feel. Nic rubs her thumb sympathetically over the back of his hand.

“I don’t remember,” says Harry. It’s a baldfaced lie – being _found out_ by that awful woman is one of the worst memories of his childhood – but he doesn’t feel like reliving any of his trauma by acknowledging that it hurts him. Nevertheless, Gemma squeezes him tighter.

“Good. People like that don’t matter. Do they, Nic?”

Nic scoffs. “Course not. More princesses should marry princesses. Prettier weddings for one thing.”

Gemma giggles. Harry toys with the flower in his lap, still unable to meet Nic’s eyes.

“Well, maybe not with those boots he wore. Oversized yellow ones that were always caked in mud. Sometimes he’d get little splinters in his fingers too from making rings out of twigs and we’d have to pull them while he cried.”

Gemma pinches the skin on his shoulder with her nails, mimicking tweezers. Harry yelps in pain and tilts his head up to give Gemma a look of consternation.

“Love is very dangerous,” says Nic through a laugh. She squeezes his hand again, which Gemma seems to _notice_ this time judging from the soft sigh emanating somewhere above his head.

“Anyway, you two seem _very_ busy so I’ll let you have at it,” she says, finally letting go. With that, she skips away to their parents who give a little cheer as a greeting when she finally descends into shadow.

Nic picks up the small flower Gemma left behind out of his lap. She twirls it in between her thumb and little finger, apparently delighted by the souvenir.

“Even the weeds in Italy are pretty,” she says. Then, she pushes a lock of Harry’s hair behind his ear and tucks the flower in along with it. “Think it looks better on you, though. Matches your eyes.”

The compliment tips Harry’s emotional state over from _on edge_ to _too much too much too much._ He extracts his hot hand from Nic’s and stands up abruptly. Nic makes a confused noise when he pulls away.

“Bit tired,” says Harry. “Think I need to go to bed.”

On his way back to the house, he shakes the flower out of his hair.


	3. Chapter 3

Harry wakes at half past six the morning after the bonfire. His back throbs from tossing and turning all night. The room next door is dead silent which means it must be Saturday. When the night before rushes into his brain, he groans and throws the covers over his head. Muted sunlight pours through his translucent covers, turning them a soothing pastel yellow. He breathes his own morning breath in and out to try and center himself. It works. . .a little. Enough to turn his floating anxieties into concrete thoughts but not enough to form a plan of attack. One step at a time.

The thing is – he had been planning to never tell Nic that he feels a bit like he might be sort of a part-time girl. He’s not a big fan of talking about his gender in _general_ (which makes him dead frustrating in LGBT groups, he knows) but he’s especially wary around Nic’s type – cis lesbians. This is not the first time he’s had a hopeless crush on a lesbian, so he’s well-acquainted with this wariness and shame. He knows he doesn’t, well, _look the part_ , so each crush makes him feel like this heterosexual alien, wandering the sacred halls of lesbianism where he very much does not belong. His crush on Nic, which may be his worst in a very long time, has only amplified this feeling of being an intruder.

Yet Nic, for some reason, wants to hold his hand.

Feeling unable to process his emotions beyond this point, he decides to FaceTime the leader of his college LGBT group – Ny. She’s one of the few people who really understands where he is at in his “gender journey” so maybe she’ll be able to offer some counsel. He thanks whatever deity that’s in charge that Ny is an early riser who is endlessly happy to nudge her little gay ducklings into a state of peace with their own identity.

After a few rings, she picks up. Ny is in leggings and a ratty t-shirt, surrounded by candles that probably smell like cinnamon to cover up the skunk of weed. She grins brightly, in the way that people who have worked out all of their neuroses do. Honestly, Harry is a little in love with Ny too, but he would never exchange their friendship for anything.

“Good morning, Harry!” she says in her lovely kiwi accent. “Been a while since I’ve seen your face! Thought you might’ve turned into one of the memes you keep dropping in the group chat.”

Harry rubs a greasy hand over his greasy face.

“Sorry, Ny. I’ve just had a lot going on,” he says. Ny nods, giving a little hum of understanding.

“Seems like some of it’s bothering you. Tell me about it?” she says. Harry takes a shuddering breath, pulls some stringy hair out of his face, and backs up a month to describe his entire tale of woe. All of the pining and the jealousy and the desire pours out of him like blood from an unexpected slice with a kitchen knife. His eyes mist but he doesn’t cry, too self-conscious about what his face looks like in the bottom screen to let the tears out. Ny listens patiently; she has a special knack for at least _pretending_ to not have heard other people have this exact same crisis before.

“What do I do?” he says when all of the anguish has finally left his body. Ny sucks through her teeth thoughtfully. He flushes – she only makes that noise when she’s trying to be diplomatic about someone being a gay idiot.

“You know, I’ve been doing some reading in German over the summer. Keeping my skills strong for when I start upper level choral composition in the fall, you know,” she says. Ny runs her hand through her messy hair, thinking. “There’s this old book of fairy tales and in one of them a knight and a princess who are mates are trying to decide if they should be something more.”

Harry pulls the phone a little closer. Even from a distance, Ny’s an engaging storyteller. He imagines her putting an arm around him and feels a little lighter.

“The knight,” she continues. “He’s afraid to say anything. Doesn’t want to ruin their friendship, or maybe he just likes her too much and is afraid she’ll reject him. _Classic_ lesbian nonsense.”

Ny grins at her little joke, and Harry can’t help but smile back.

“Seen that before,” he says. In return, Ny gives him an accusing look – _been there before_ – that he chooses to ignore in favor of neutrally listening to her story.

“Exactly. So the knight over here, instead of being forward, decides to talk in riddles to the princess. Because, of course he does – he’s a lesbian through and through. Instead of asking her on a date, he says to the princess, ‘Is it better to speak or to die?’ Again: Seen. It. All. Before.”

Harry chokes on a laugh at her faux-consternation. Ny gives him a fond smile.

“The princess,” Ny sighs, seemingly caught up in the drama of her own story. “Well – also a classic lesbian. Can’t be forward or think straight. Instead of just saying, ‘Are you trying to ask me out’ she plays into this gay chicken riddle game. She says, ‘It’s better to speak.’”

Harry nods his head.

“What does the knight do.”

Ny rolls her eyes, _really_ in it now.

“Well, he goes off into this long gay monologue, doesn’t he? All about the reasons why he loves her and doesn’t want to tell her. The princess, being frustrated and ever so gay for him. . .chews him out for not telling her earlier. Which he counters with such dense language that honestly – I started skimming to see if they’d just get together already.”

“Do they?” says Harry. He pictures the knight and princess frozen in time, terrified of how they feel, their indecision immortalized.

“Yes,” says Ny. “It’s a bit complicated because of, you know, 16th century marriage politics and all that. But they do get to be in love. All because the knight spoke.”

Ny gives him a pointed look. Harry moves the screen so she can’t totally see his eyes. He wants her to spell this out for him, even though he knows exactly what it means, but if she can’t see his eyes she might think he doesn’t understand.

“What does this have to do with me?” says Harry. Ny, being wise and wonderful, doesn’t let him get off that easily.

“Harry. You know exactly what this has to do with you,” she says. Harry moves the phone again; it really isn’t fair that he’s taken so much of Ny’s time and is pretending to not listen to her.

“I should tell Nic how I feel,” he says, tremulously. “The way I feel about. . .myself. . .and the way I feel about her.”

Ny nods, looking proud.

“Good girl.”

-

His piano playing is absolute _shite_ when he and Nic finally get around to settling into their morning routine. He can’t tell if she doesn’t notice or if she’s just afraid to say anything. Since the night before, she’s been stepping around him very carefully, as though she thinks she’s done something wrong. Each sour note is a symptom, his fingers slipping on the sweat of his own self-loathing. Harry thinks he’s surely ruined everything by running away the night before until Nic closes her book and tilts her head towards him.

“I realized I’ve never asked you about the lovely piece you play every morning. Did you write it?” she says.

Harry blushes, so surprised that she’s caught him in the act of worshipping her melodically that he has no choice but to lie.

“No. It’s just a new-ish piece by a female composer I like a lot. She, erm, wrote it for a lover who really liked to read,” he says.

Nic turns around, plants her elbows in the arm of the couch, and rests her chin in her hands. If a painter were to depict Harry’s cowardice incarnate, they’d choose this as their muse – Harry and Nic, piano and sofa, her staring up and he, down.

“Lover must be pretty special for her to write something so beautiful,” says Nic.

 _God_ , if Ny were here she’d call him a fucking lesbian and egg him on to say how he feels. She’d say, _you’re being just like the knight, come on. Grow a pair of tits, Harry._ Ny _isn’t_ here though, so he settles for a half-truth with a glint in his eye and a sharp nod.

“The, erm, composer did a talk at school and said that different parts of the piece corresponded to different aspects of her lover reading. Her eyes scanning the page –” he plays a quick trill. “ – or when she seems a bit stuck –” a low, slow arpeggio. “ – or when she seems to dislike whatever the author is going on about –” flat, sharp, flat triplet.

He swivels around on the seat to find Nic’s face much closer than expected.

“A trailblazing accomplishment in the name of lesbianism. Brilliant,” she says. Nic gives him a cheeky smile with her tongue between her teeth. It’s meant to clear the air, but Harry feels _wrong wrong wrong_ for lying already. He swallows hard, and steels himself to tell the truth.

“Nic, I –”

“Harry?” his mum calls from the kitchen. Both he and Nic startle as though shocked. Nic leans back onto her bum and puts her hands in her lap like a prim and proper Catholic schoolgirl. Harry gets up and heads into the kitchen. His mum is bustling around it, pulling out the slow cooker from the shelf. Sausages again, probably.

“Yea, mum?”

The clock chimes noon. His mum grabs a stack of mail from the counter that has a few euros on top and hands it to him. She tucks a lock of hair behind his ear and then kisses his forehead. Last summer, he would have recoiled from parental affection, but being twenty is different. Neither of them think he is a child anymore; all their fondness is rooted in nostalgia.

“Take this to the post office and buy some stamps too. Anything left over you can use for lunch, okay?”

Nic trails into the kitchen and leans against the door frame with her arms folded.

“Putting Harry to work again, Anne? Going to exhaust the poor thing, sending her on all these errands.”

Harry’s mum swats at Nic with a dishtowel on her way to the fridge. Nic gives her a faux-offended look.

“His legs would atrophy at that piano otherwise,” his mother says. She rummages around in the fridge and pulls out sausage and vegetables. “Also – and I do say this with love – ” she pulls a knife and a cutting board out of the drawers and puts them on the counter. “He writes a piano piece every summer about his latest object of affection and will play it right into the ground if I let him. Drove everyone in the house mad that first summer here.”

Nic gives Harry the kind of knowing smirk that makes him want to set himself on fire.

“Really?” she says. Harry’s mum starts chopping up peppers into neat little slices. She hums in response.

“Better for everyone that he gets a daily reminder that there’s a world outside of his own head,” she says. Then, she puts down the knife and shoos them out of the kitchen. “Off you get, both of you. It’s about to get very steamy in here and I don’t need body heat making it worse.”

-

Nic manages to push ahead of him on bike halfway through their ride. She has the stamina of a real athlete which means that Harry’s height advantage has nothing on her after the first mile. Like always, he catches himself staring at the back of her pale thighs, sprayed with flecks of dirt from the road. For the first time, he doesn’t pull his eyes away. He thinks, _maybe she wants me to look._ His suspicions are confirmed when they hit a stop sign and she looks back at him. Her cheeks, pink from exertion, flush darker when she traces his eye line.

“How’s my form?” she says before rushing off too fast to get an answer.

He’s terribly sweaty by the time they arrive at the post office. Through the window, he can see that Nic is already inside waiting in line. Sweat has stuck her hair to her neck and added a shine to her back. He wastes a good thirty seconds staring at that shine, wondering what it would taste like on his tongue. Then, he shakes himself out of his horny reverie, takes the pile of mail out of his bike basket, and brings it inside to stand in line with Nic. Her face lights up when she hears the little _ding_ that says the door is open and sees that Harry has entered.

“Over here!” she says, as though there aren’t only five people in line. When he joins her, she throws an arm over his shoulder. He catches the scent of her musky deodorant – a men’s brand he’d tried years previously that just smelled _wrong_ on him – and almost gets knocked out by the masculine-feminine of it all. He’s been looking past so many beautiful things like this, too scared to look too hard out of fear that she’ll lose any interest in him at all. Harry breathes her in and thinks, _maybe she understands._

Nic’s Italian is much better than his, so he allows her to order the stamps and lunch, too. They grab simple sandwiches at one of the town’s _salumerias_ as well as some chocolate and fruit from a stand close by to the post office. Harry and Nic post up with their sandwiches on the rim of a large fountain – Nic, legs wide, and Harry, legs crossed. For a little while they eat in silence, observing each other out of the corner of their eyes. Harry chews and chews and chews, trying to come up with some clever lead-in to all of the things he needs to say. Finding none, he settles on the truth.

“The song I play every morning is about you,” he admits. Easier truths first.

“Is that so?” says Nick with a mouthful of sandwich. After swallowing, she dryly continues, “Never would’ve guessed.”

Harry laughs into his palm. Already he feels a little lighter.

“Oh, _God_. When did you figure it out?”

“Week two, love,” Nic says through another bite of sandwich. “Sometimes you talk to yourself when you play and I heard my own name.”

Harry heaves a great sigh. He folds his sandwich back into its wrapper and puts it into his bike basket, stomach now too filled with butterflies to eat.

“Nic, I really like you,” he says quietly. “I’ve liked you for a long time and I’ve been too afraid to say anything because you’re only attracted to women and I don’t know what I am.”

Nic nods, then wraps her half-sandwich up too. She shoves it in the front pocket of her satchel and brushes her hands off on her shorts. Then she holds her hand out for Harry to grab so he can get to his feet.

“Let’s go talk about this somewhere a bit more private, yeah?”

Harry’s mind races as fast as his heart – _fuck, she wants to let me down easy in private in case I cry and embarrass her_. Then, Nic taps him on the bottom of the chin and squeezes his hand.

“I’m not rejecting you. I just don’t want to talk about the, er, intricacies of sex and gender a stone’s throw from at least four of the town’s biggest, oldest gossips. Maria over there?” she flicks her eyes towards an old woman eating a sandwich who has hair so fine that her scalp is visible underneath. “Your mum will hear every single detail of our self discovery by sundown if she gets an earful of it.”

Harry nods and pulls away from Nic. He straddles his bike as Nic throws her satchel onto her back.

“Down by the pond, then?” he says with as steady of a voice as he can manage. Nic’s face lights up – that part of town is beautiful in the mid-afternoon.

“Onward, princess Harry.”

-

They dismount from their bikes in the clearing quietly, one kickstand, and then two, plunging into the soft dirt. Nic, so often tongue-in-cheek, is reverent here. The last time they’d been, she’d sat in silence for over fifteen minutes weaving grass in her lap.

 _This is a record silence for me,_ she’d said to break the silence.

Nic lays out one of the towels she usually carries with her – _rule 1: don’t panic_ – and empties her satchel of the strawberries and chocolate they’d bought in town. Harry sits down on the towel and takes off his shoes and socks to feel the grass under his toes. The pond in front of them is placid and grey with little ripples of fish swimming just under the surface. Above them, birds chatter and leaves rustle.

He wants to fall in love here.

Nic takes her shoes off too, then leans her back against his own. She cracks open the box of strawberries and picks a fat one just this side of overripe.

“So,” she says through a bite of strawberry. “I feel like I haven’t been open with you about a lot of things. I’ve been, erm –” she rolls the strawberry leaf onto the towel and presses her head against Harry’s. “Well, honestly, leading you on a little. And I’m sorry.”

“You don’t like me, then?” says Harry. There must be a tremble in his voice, because Nic squeezes his hand.

“No, believe me, I really _really_ like you. It’s maybe driving me mad, how much I like you. But I’ve never been attracted to men before in all of my twenty-nine years and I just. . .I had no idea whether or not you _were_ one so I was like, oh god, maybe I’m bisexual – and there’s nothing wrong with that!”

She grips his hand tighter for emphasis. Harry laughs. He feels loose, free, as though the strawberries they’re eating are soaked in liquor. What a relief, that Nic felt anguish too.

“I know,” he says. Nic groans.

“Right. I do too, logically. But I was so attached to being a lesbian that some days I’d just go – _fuck_ , I need to go out right now and try to seduce, like, a straight woman. To hear out of another woman’s mouth that being brand new to lesbian sex was _so amazing_ , you know? And I knew – I knew what it did to you, when I went out with those women. I knew it hurt your feelings and gave you mixed messages and I’m sorry.”

Harry takes his time processing her words. He eats a few more strawberries. Juice rolls down his wrist and onto her trusty towel. Drip, drip, drip.

“I don’t want you to stop identifying as a lesbian on my account, Nic,” he says. Harry turns around to face her, sitting on his knees, still holding her hand. “I like – I _like_ that you’re a lesbian.”

Nic cracks a small smile – _thanks_ – and the dam breaks. Harry buries his face in her chest and starts to cry.

“I don’t want you to be wrong,” he says. Gently, Nic wraps her arms around Harry and buries her hand in his hair.

“ _Baby_. You didn’t let me get to the part of the story where I realized I was wrong about being wrong.”

Harry chokes a wet laugh into her neck.

“Nic, you talk too much.”

Then, in an act of bravery not even seen among gallant 16th century knights, Harry kisses her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are you convinced love is real yet? I might be. . .
> 
> Also - yes, that was a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy joke. Nic likes Douglas Adams it’s just facts.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize this is short and it’s been two months but I just finally cracked the code on it and I’m having a bad day so I wanted to post something. Much love to my readers and subscribers.

They spend the rest of the afternoon in that clearing, kissing and talking about nothing and tossing stones onto the pond. Each time Nic leans in for a kiss, Harry is hit with desire to touch her everywhere that he can. Fear bumps up against this desire, inspiring restraint. Nic’s fingers tremble when she touches his chest and thighs. He thinks, _she doesn’t know how to touch me yet._ He thinks, _I don’t know how to help her._

Nic gets a little bolder when a shadow of the moon appears in the sky. She tips Harry onto his back and straddles his leg. For hours, Harry has been trying to hide how hard he is, but it’s unmistakable now. He turns his head as she looks up and down his body, praying that she won’t be disgusted by what she sees. Nic strokes his thighs up and down, nails buzzing on top of his jeans. She sighs.

“God. I’m so bad at this,” she says. Harry gazes up at her, confused.

“What?” he says, just barely keeping himself from babbling _you’re amazing this is amazing I want this night to never end –_

“The _talking_ thing during sex. I don’t know how to – I don’t usually –”

Nic pinches the bridge of her nose.

“I’m a bit of a tart, but I’m used to, erm. Standard equipment.”

Harry tilts his head back to look at the moon. He chews over what to say as his heart pounds in his throat.

“I often, erm, don’t like regular sex,” he says. “I don’t really like having. . . _that_ so I feel – I get very upset when it’s. . .handled. Like, on the inside,” he says.

Harry wants to shield his humiliation by curling in on himself, but Nic shifts her weight on top of hi before he can. She rubs his earlobe, gives him a gentle kiss, and tucks two fingers inside of the buttons just above his navel.

“So you need me to treat it like. . .it’s not there? Or maybe. . .like it’s something else?” she says. It’s conversational, as though she’s used to treating parts-that-are-one-thing like parts-that-are-something-else. For the first time, he wonders if Nic has ever slept with someone on the opposite axis to himself – a stone butch. Maybe this isn’t her first go-around with a gender dysphoric partner.

Harry unbuttons his own shirt and lays her hand on his breast. His heart is thumping so hard that she probably can feel it.

“Yeah. As best you can. Just like any other girl,” he says with a shaky voice.

Nic leans in for a kiss – less gentle, this time. She squeezes his – _her,_ Harry allows himself – _her, her, her_ breast and guides Harry’s hand to her own. Her hand shakes as she teases Nic’s hard nipple with her thumb. Harry shivers as Nic grinds against her leg. 

“I can do that,” she says.

They strip down to their socks and touch and touch and _touch_ until they’ve both come. Above them, the pale moon smiles.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, it RETURNS, lads. NSFW so hopefully it was worth the wait!

Weeks pass by, slow and warm. It seems as though they’re always touching now – a hand on Harry’s shoulder, a piece of fruit pressed to her tongue, and Nic’s tongue pressed to her breast. Harry wakes up in Nic’s room every morning to her radio voice, feeling sticky and serene. Her parents, bless them, don’t try to have a _conversation_. Somewhere along the line, he becomes she, and she becomes we. It feels like it’s always been that way, like her fragile bud of a life has been waiting until this summer to properly bloom.

The peaches in the yard grow plump on their branches and thunk to the ground en masse. She and Nic eat them and play with the excess – experimentation with different ways of pitting, catch, strange crafts, and, of course, copious amounts of terrible baking. Nic tells enthralling stories of her past lovers as she tosses a peach back and forth in her hand.

 _All fruit is pussy, really, if you think about it for a minute_ – she says, a thousand times. How the peach represents desire, the juice dripping down a woman’s chin, a tongue flicking out to catch it. On her more obscene days, she finds the ripest fruit she can, and pushes in her middle and index finger so that the peach squirts juice all over her hand. It knocks Harry out, to see the things Nic’s fingers can do in broad daylight. She takes Nic’s fingers into her mouth, thinking – _I wish I could give you – so that you would –_

So, okay, there’s a _little_ trouble in paradise. That being – the ever-ticking clock to Nic’s departure and Harry’s tragic lack of a pussy. She knows, she _knows_ , she _KNOWS_ that the two topics of discussion are, and always have been, unrelated. Yet there is an unchanging irksome nature to both the departure and her pussy-less existence. There is tragedy in both, and desire in both, so they’re inextricably linked in Harry’s mind.

(Nic likes to push Harry’s hair back onto her forehead with a flat hand and say – _you think too much._ Then, she’ll lean into Harry, and then, and then.)

One slightly-sloshy evening, Harry finds herself with a peach in her own room. Everyone else is out on the town, buying more food and alcohol. Harry’s here, because the liquor she’s had has gotten her to thinking, and they’re thoughts she can’t have with other people around. The peach gives slightly under her fingers as she thinks about the time she has left to go about this unbothered. Fifteen minutes, at most, before someone could walk in.

Harry presses her thumb harder into the peach until her nail bites through the skin. Drops of juice roll down her thumb; she licks them up before they drip down her arm. Harry probes the fruit with her tongue, then bites down on a sliver of it. She spits out the skin and lines up her lips with the indentation on the fruit – a kiss, or something else. Then, she pulls the fruit away from her mouth, and sticks two fingers inside. It feels –

Well, it _feels like pussy._

A shiver of excitement runs up Harrys spine. She pits the fruit and tosses it under the covers to clean up later. Gingerly, Harry rolls the peach down her chest and slides it into her pants. She lines up the hole in the peach with her – with _herself_ and pushes inside. Then, Harry breaks the skin on the side of the peach with her middle and index finger and shuts her eyes.

Blind to the world and all alone, it is so easy to imagine the peach as a part of herself. The _her_ of it feels all too right with sweet juice dripping down Harry’s fingers. She crooks her fingers at an angle she knows makes other women squirm and gasps at the _plunkplunkplunk_ of juice meeting fabric. _Fuck_ , she’s wet. She’s _wet_.

Harry’s long hair keeps falling into her mouth as she squirms with pleasure. When she moves it out of her face, she pictures Nic’s soft hands, soft mouth, soft smile. How much she would enjoy seeing Harry touch herself. The slide of her own slick up and down Harry’s leg. She feels up her own tits with her free hand imagining Nic’s hands there.

_You’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen._

With a final thrust into the peach, Harry cums. She tries to muffle the sound but chokes on the exhale anyway. Her body is hot, hot, _hot_ as she writhes sweatily in the bedsheets. The visceral satisfaction of feeling her fingers deep in the peach makes the pleasure stretch on and on. There’s no room in her brain to think about what’s _really_ down there.

After, Harry pulls the peach off of herself. Pleasure is replaced with regret as she feels how sticky her legs and stomach have become. Harry inspects the defiled peach – and reality floods back. The large hole in the peach is filled with cum – _boy_ cum – and it’s leaking in small drips out of the side too. Bruises the size of – ugh – _large_ fingers litter the now-wrinkled piece of fruit. There’s not a single thing that’s feminine about it; there’s nothing that’s even _appealing_ about it. Harry takes deep breaths, trying to not wallow in an undeserved sense of self-pity. She places the fruit under the pillow next to her feeling so, so exhausted, and makes a mental note to toss it and wash her sheets before dawn.

-

Harry spends the next several seconds-minutes-hours buried in vibrant dreams. Fruit and women and mermaids and changelings and ogres dance together around a fire. They sing songs she doesn’t understand in languages that don’t exist. Bodies are irrelevant, useless, outmoded, outdated. When she looks down, all she sees is light. She hears – and she _hears_ –

“Hullo,” someone murmurs in her ear. Harry startles awake, then relaxes when she realizes it’s just Nic. She’s sat next to Harry on the bed, clad in boxers and a ratty tee shirt. She’s hard from being woken up unexpectedly, and Nic’s beauty isn’t helping in keeping _certain intruders_ tucked away. She crosses her legs – _attempts were made_ – and rubs at her eye with a sticky fist.

“Hullo, Nic. What are you doing awake?”

Nic toys with a knotted strand of Harry’s long hair. She wrinkles her nose when the strands stick to her fingers. _God_ – if Harry could put Nic wrinkling her adorable nose on a loop she’d play it again and again and again. _Maybe if Nic ever branches to video_ , she thinks, _someone could gif it for me then_.

“Couldn’t sleep. Had absolutely mad dreams,” says Nic. She sucks on her thumb, tasting the sticky residue. “Is this. . .juice in your hair?”

Harry is going to faint from embarrassment or arousal or maybe both. Nic is going to kill her one day just by existing as herself. Harry puts her sticky hand over her face and rubs it all the way down to her chin.

“Um. Yeah –”

Unfortunately, she can’t come up with an excuse before Nic’s eyes flicker over to the barely concealed peach sticking out from under Harry’s pillow. Fear strikes Harry’s heart as she waits for the inevitable recognition and revulsion. Instead, Nic eyes light up. She looks back at Harry and then, once more, at the peach. Nic grabs the defiled peach and inspects it. When her fingers press into the holes Harry had imagined as _her_ , Nic flushes.

“Did you –”

The urge to tear the peach out of her hands rears in Harry, but she controls it. Nic is smaller than her and she doesn’t want to frighten her with an outburst. So, she opts for vulnerability and nods her head.

“Sorry,” she says, feeling the shame rush through her. “I know it’s disgusting.”

Nic squeezes Harry’s hand firmly. She turns the fruit until her eye is to the bigger hole and peers at her through it as though through a pinhole.

“I’m not sure I’d call it that. Maybe not very _appetizing_ but it’s certainly _creative_.”

 _Creative_. Harry giggles, feeling a little hysterical.

“I remembered what you said about fruit,” she says. “How it’s like –”

She can’t bring herself to say the word. The shame runs too deep. Nevertheless, Nic gets the picture. She presses her fingers into the smaller hole, still peering through the larger one.

“Like pussy.”

Harry groans. “God. Yeah.”

The peach omits an obscene squelch as Nic moves her fingers in and out of the smaller hole.

“Like _your_ pussy,” she says. Harry clenches the bedsheets tighter but she doesn’t turn her face away. Maybe if Nic sees Harry’s shame she won’t think less of her in the morning.

What she doesn’t expect is for her to take a bite of the peach.

“Nic!” She exclaims as Nic chews and chews. “Oh my God. Why would you _do_ that?”

She rolls the peach out of her hand and onto the ( _God_ – filthy) covers. Then, she licks the juice off of her fingers that were right in – that were inside of –

Nic flops onto the bed, her eyes soft. She tucks a strand of hair behind Harry’s ear.

“Well. I was right that it wasn’t very appetizing. But I want all parts of you, Harry.”

Harry’s breath catches in her throat at the plain-faced statement. Now, it’s Nic’s turn to blush. It crawls up her neck and into her cheeks, a blotchy, wonderful thing. Before Nic can make a joke or take it back, Harry kisses her, willing _it’s okay_ into every gasp, every sigh, every moan.

-

Later, Nic wraps her body around every part of Harry that she can. Harry tries to make herself small enough to be the little spoon, but all attempts leave them laughing. Instead, Harry’s on her back, arm around Nic’s waist, ankle-to-ankle, face-to-shoulder – etc. When she shifts, a tuft of her short hair tickles Harry’s nose. The configuration of their bodies is some elaborate game of gender-Jenga that Nic is definitely winning.

“When did you decide to cut your hair off?” says Harry. She playfully blows the hair out of her face. In response to said-blowing, Nic nuzzles her shoulder. _Mysteriously_ , this returns the tuft to her face, and then some.

“First year of uni. Realized I was a dyke and so I went –”

She mimes scissors with her fingers and chops at a piece of Harry’s hair.

“Did it make you feel –” _like a real lesbian_ “ – more like yourself?”

Nic _hmms_ against Harry’s skin. The vibration of it tickles, but Harry wills herself not to move. It seems, always, as though Nic is moments from slipping out of her grasp.

“Dunno. My mum went a bit mental over it which I thought was pretty funny. More girls wanted to talk to me – I liked that. That made me feel more like myself than anything else.”

Harry cranes her neck and gives her a kiss on the top of the head. It’s clumsy – _everything_ about her is, really. Nic kisses her back on the neck anyway.

“Made _me_ want to talk to you,” Harry says. Nic wraps her arms more tightly around her.

“I noticed. Always staring at me when we were in the same room like a pup who wants to go for a walk. Should’ve known that you were –”

They’re here, again, because Harry just can’t let it go. The desire to understand Nic, her identity, her history, supersedes the knowledge that, when she asks in return, she will have few answers for her.

Harry sighs. It sounds shakier, sadder than she’d like.

“You make me feel more like myself than anything else,” she says into Nic’s hair.

Nic raises herself up on her elbows so she can look Harry in the face. Harry winces as she moves one of them away from the soft flesh under her ribs.

“Sorry! I just want to try –” she presses their foreheads together. “I want to experiment with something.”

Harry moves her hand to the small of Nic’s back. She tucks it up under her bed-shirt, skin already buzzing with desire.

“Yeah?”

Nic gives her a kiss.

“Not _that_. At least, not yet.”

Still, she can’t seem to resist kissing her a few more times. Her hand, so carefully placed to Harry’s side moments before, wrests her chin in the direction of her mouth.

“Fuck,” she says between kisses that leave Harry panting. “I am so _fucked_ for you. Do you know that?”

“Sure,” mumbles Harry, too far gone to tell her that it never has been, that it never _will be_ enough to hear her say that. Ten years in the future Nic could say _I am so fucked for you_ and even then, after a thousand times, she wouldn’t believe it.

When Nic starts grinding into her thigh, she pulls away.

“Okay. I can keep my clit in my pants for five minutes. I’m trying to – I want to help you,” she says.

“I thought what you were just doing was very helpful,” says Harry. Nic’s eyes flutter shut and she kisses Harry’s forehead.

“Hush. Well – actually don’t.” Nic wrests herself onto her elbows again. “Say your own name.”

Harry frowns at her. “Harry. Why –”

Nic shakes her head.

“Just trust me. Say your name again – but address me. Call me by your name.”

_Huh._

“Harry,” she says. Nic nods.

“Again,” she says. “Repeat it until you mean it.”

“Harry,” she repeats. “Harry, Harry, Harry, Harry.”

With each repetition, the name sounds new. It drains of its masculinity, of its history, of its owner. The name belongs to Nic in the same way that summertime always will. How pollinating bees will remind her of their curiosity for Nic’s bright shirts. The way long grass tickled their ankles the first time they kissed. Her name belongs to that, and to Nic, now.

When Harry trails off, Nic murmurs, “Good. My turn. Nic. Nic. Nic. . .”

Harry’s heart, always too big and too full, can barely manage this gift of compassion. As Nic bestows her gift – her name – her _girl’s name_ – Harry starts to cry. Nic wipes away her tears gently but she doesn’t stop. She keeps going – _Nic, Nic, Nic –_ until Harry runs out of tears. Then, she kisses her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact - the peach fucking scene was the first scene I wrote of this so many months ago. It has changed a little since then but has stayed mostly intact. Living in my brain rent free, that scene!


End file.
